Q + A: PANEL DISCUSSION 3
Hosted by SHANE TAURIMA
In response to LEN BROWN INTERVIEW

SHANE Welcome back to our panel, Raymond Miller, Mike Williams and Fran O’Sullivan. Mike, what did you make of that?

MIKE Well, I was just saying to the panel I think Len has really grown into the job. I think he’s doing extraordinarily well. There’s an amazing endorsement of Len in The Herald on Sunday by none less than Rodney Hide today. I was impressed, and he is very single-minded about the city rail loop, as he should be. It’s a transformational project that Auckland desperately needs, and I think National risks getting offside with Auckland if they stonewall this much longer. What we’re talking about here – yes, it’s a $2 billion project, but it’s $200 million a year for 10 years, which I think is much more palatable than just standing up and saying, ‘We need 2 billion.’ And the other point I’d make is in the long National Government of the ‘90s, $3 billion of petrol excise tax and road user tax was subtracted from Auckland and spent round the rest of the country, making really good rural roads in Taranaki-King Country and Clutha-Southland and Ashburton. And as an Aucklander, I want that money back.

LAUGHTER

SHANE Raymond Miller, is there a fight looming with Central Government?

RAYMOND Well, there’s a long-standing problem in New Zealand. It’s a systemic one, and it has to do with the allocation of power. Our government, and it’s Labour governments as well as National governments, over long periods of time have nobbled local government. They have concentrated all the power themselves into their own activities. We don’t have a federal system like Australia or Canada or elsewhere, and as a result, all the power is in Wellington and one house of Parliament and in the hands of one government. What they’ve got to learn to do is they’ve created this supercity, they’ve got to give the supercity some power. They’ve got to devolve some power back down – genuine power – none of this business of kind of, you know, ‘You’re being ridiculous, and we’re not going to give you this, and we’re—‘

SHANE So, Fran, the Government – does it need to step up here?

FRAN Well, the Government’s got a problem because fiscally it’s got its eye on trying to get back to the surplus and also funding Christchurch, which Len referred to. I think what the Government’s also trying to do by keeping the purse strings very tight as far as Auckland is concerned is basically forcing Auckland to look quite critically at its own balance sheet of assets. Should it, for instance, flick the port off or something like that and put that money into funding rail? And arguably, if they hadn’t have bought the port back years ago, they might have had the cash for this sort of thing. And those are the kind— Or Chinese funding or the network charge, you know, there’s a whole pile of creative options. So I think everyone realises it has to happen, but it’s coming down to who pays.

SHANE So, and that’s the big question, isn’t it? So if the Government’s not prepared to pay, Mike Williams, what should Mayor Brown do?

MIKE I think he’s got to keep pressuring the Government. And I think, you know, Fran just suggested selling the port – that would be political suicide for Len. People oppose—

FRAN Well, it’s sort of like super for the Prime Minister—

MIKE Exactly.

FRAN but sometimes they have to do the right thing in tight circumstances.

MIKE Yeah, but I think we’re going through the process that I’ve been through on Transit over the last 10 years. Aucklanders don’t want congestion charging. They don’t particularly want network charging. The Government’s ruled out a regional petrol tax, which the Labour Government allowed to happen. They’re really going to have to say, ‘Well, if Aucklanders are not allowed to raise the money themselves, then we’re going to have to pay.’ That is the logic of Gerry Brownlee’s position.

SHANE Is that going to happen, though, Raymond?

RAYMOND Well, I don’t think it is going to happen. And when we take, for instance, housing, it really requires the government – central government – working with local government on this issue. It won’t be solved – the problem will not be addressed, really, by one doing it and not the other.

FRAN Well, and I think we will see a National statement on housing later in the year, and the Government’s putting the machinery in place for this. They mentioned today about the RMA, that sort of thing. There does need to be movement so they can do that mass housing, and I was actually quite cheered when Len referred to the fact that he could put 80,000 additional houses in without having to necessarily break the—

SHANE Just very briefly too on the politics of this – Len Brown opening the National Party conference. How should we read that?

MIKE Oh, you—

RAYMOND I loved the blue tie.

LAUGHTER

RAYMOND I couldn’t— For a moment there, I thought that he’d joined the National Party, but clearly he hasn’t.

SHANE Yeah, so a closer relationship?

MIKE That’s what happens. That’s just what happens. If you’ve got your conference in a city, it doesn’t matter the stripe of the mayor; it’s the mayor that opens the conference.

SHANE And unfortunately we have to leave it there. Mike Williams, Dr Raymond Miller and Fran O’Sullivan, thank you again for your time.

ENDS

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